Multi-talent Paige Stark from the band Tashaki Miyaki picks up the camera to direct the group’s music videos herself

Multi-talented singer, drummer, producer, actress, and now, music video director Paige Stark is a veteran Los Angeles musician and artist who has worked with some of the biggest names in indie music and film. Her languidly melodic, sunshine-and-whiskey dream pop band Tashaki Miyaki is soon releasing their newest album, Castaway, and in addition to handling most of the auditory duties as well as producing the album, Stark took on the additional creative challenge of shooting and directing the band’s two recent videos, “Castaway” and “Gone“. 

Musically, she enlisted guitarist Luke Paquin (Hot Hot Heat) and bassist Sandi Denton to flesh out the songs, while Tom Petty’s Benmont Tench guests, as does her longtime collaborator Jon Brion – an industry icon who has not only worked with Kanye West, Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, and Mac Miller but has also scored films Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch Drunk Love), and David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees).

Stark infuses Tashaki Miyaki’s music and videos with an atmospheric, sensual vibe that deliciously mirrors a waking dream where everything appears beautiful, but shadows and heartbreak lurk throughout a breathtakingly oneiric glow. The quick hit would be to think of it as the Next Gen Cowboy Junkies or Portishead. But frankly, that’s just to launch you into their hypnotic/romantic soundscape.

But this is a film site, right? So, in this Q&A with Détente’s Tiina Teal, Stark discusses her inspirations and dynamics while offering unique insights from a musician who has transferred their auditory, creative impulses into a newly interpreted visual form. Tashaki Miyaki’s new album Castaway releases this July via Metropolis Records. I’ve been writing to it for a couple weeks now, so I’m putting my money where my mouth is there. Go pre-order it here, and view their videos “Castaway” and “Gone“. 

1. As an accomplished musician (writer, singer, drummer, producer), what made you decide to take on the additional duties of shooting and directing the videos for Tashaki Miyaki’s new album?

I am a huge movie lover. In 2019, I directed a video on 16mm for my solo project called “Depression Song“. I always wanted to make films but struggled with self-doubt. At some point, I started talking about my desire to shoot things on 16mm and met people who wanted to do the same. These new friends believed in my ideas and vision as a director, which gave me the confidence to start making things. I fell in love with the process of shooting on film during the making of “Depression Song.” I think loving film is a more specific thing these days and I am obsessed. It feels like magic to me. I love waiting for the film to be developed and seeing the raw footage for the first time. The DPs I have met working in film are people I want to be lifelong friends with. And getting to make stuff together is super joyful. So when my band started talking about making visual content for Castaway, I told them I wanted to direct the videos and they were game.

My former DP wasn’t in town due to Covid, so I met Arlene Muller- the DP of “Castaway” and “Gone” through my editor. Arlene has been incredible and we want to make a movie together. Our whole band has been involved in the process: either staring in, or acting as crew. It’s been really fun. Most of our previous videos were made by our friend Juan Iglesias who is a beautiful filmmaker. His videos were a big part of the origin of the band. I learned a lot from watching Juan’s work and his process. Since he wasn’t able to continue to direct videos for the band, it just made sense for me to take over – especially with the pandemic. So I guess it was both a creative desire and a practical decision.

2. I know that Sandi (Denton, bassist in the band) is also a ballet dancer and is the star of your “Gone” video. She’s featured in some really beautiful places, especially architecturally. Where were your shooting locations and were there any specific reasons for choosing those locales or buildings?

Yes. Sandi is a beautiful dancer. I knew I wanted to include dance against a cityscape for the video so that element was instant. For deciding the locations…part of what I’m interested in exploring on film is the beauty of Los Angeles. I think L.A. gets a bad reputation. I find Los Angeles very cinematic and I wanted to portray that. In “Gone” I wanted to show Sandi traveling through big empty spaces…the feeling of moving through the city alone. A kind of beautiful solitude. And then there’s the big burst of emotion at the end when she’s dancing down Grand Avenue.

Mostly I chose locations I thought were pretty and would also work logistically for the movement. We shot a lot in downtown Los Angeles. You can see the side of the Mark Taper Forum in one shot, and another downtown city building where we see her dancing in front of the building and in the reflection of the side of the building. We see Grand Avenue as she’s running/dancing down it as well as the street view facing down the hill. At the end we see her going up the Mattachine steps in Silverlake.

I choose those steps because they look like they go on forever. It’s kind of a reverse of the end of The Third Man, which is one of my favorite movie endings of all time. I love a locked shot where the subject is moving away or towards camera. That perspective shift does something for me emotionally. I love the shot at the end of Being There, where Chauncey Gardner walks away from camera across the water…that has that emotion for me too. The locations are also places I love in L.A., and that I find beautiful or poetic. So far the videos I have made are like little love letters to Los Angeles.

3. You’re a California band and your sound has a very laid back, atmospheric, and almost hypnotic feeling. What are the things that inspire you or inform your art on a daily basis by living there?

One thing is that the weather is always the same, so life feels kind of hypnotic. It’s almost always sunny. Because of this time has become elastic to me. But there’s also a loneliness, and a darker undercurrent. It’s been extra during the pandemic, but it exists here all the time. People are alone in their cars so much. Sitting in your car alone for hours in traffic is kind of surreal in a way because everyone is living in their own micro reality. There aren’t as many people out in the streets as in other cities.

Before the pandemic I often traveled throughout LA on public transit in protest. I like connecting with the city and really being in it. I would do long walks into Hollywood too. I love how strange it can be to walk in L.A. People find it shocking if you tell them you walked someplace that is a mile from where you live. During the pandemic the streets emptied and there was no traffic. So I started going on night drives. It was the best in the early part of the pandemic. The streets were completely empty at night. Everything looked like a movie set. I have never seen L.A. so empty. I found it inspiring, and it got my imagination going. You could drive anywhere in 20 minutes. So I did. It’s quite a city. We have downtown, beach, woods, canyons, suburbia…it’s kind of everything. I guess my inspiration lies in all these things. I’m also inspired by people who write about L.A. I love Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. I think my personality is somewhere in between.

4. The “Castaway” video has a slightly different vibe compared to “Gone”, which is almost uplifting and lighter in comparison, and also features a different actress. Is there a story behind the “Castaway” video/song and what you were trying to convey visually?

For the video I wanted to tap into all the feelings that can come up in love relationships: anger, sadness, loneliness, vulnerability, stillness, joy, romance, longing. Cami, my actress, has a beautifully expressive face and I’ve known her for a long time. I knew we would be able to create those moments together. I wanted it to feel like the camera was her lover, capturing her in various private moments, moods and feelings.”

I wanted “Castaway” to feel melancholy. One of the visual inspirations was The Virgin Suicides. I love the way the light looks in that film, so I wanted to play with light and the way it can color the mood of the shots, as well as show my actress living through a day and going through all these different feelings but silently and subtly. 

5. Speaking of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola is listed as one of your inspirations, which certainly seems to be reflected in your cinematography and vibe. What are your favorite films by her and why?

I LOVE Sofia. She is one of my favorite modern directors. For me Sofia really knows how to explain feelings visually. I enjoy how feminine her perspective is. To me she is soft and strong. My favorite films of hers are Somewhere and Lost in Translation.

Somewhere is special to me because it captures a very specific feeling of being a young woman, where you’re still kind of a child but not quite, and the way people treat you is changing. Many fathers have trouble with this transition period and don’t know how to support their daughters. It’s a really intense time. bell hooks talks about it in her work, and I think Sofia captured it perfectly in Somewhere. The ending when Elle Fanning cries in the car is so moving especially against the subtlety of the rest of the film. I also love how she captured L.A. and Hollywood. A very inside peek. And the scene underwater in the pool. I melt.

Lost in Translation to me is perfection. Bill Murray is incredible. As is Scarlett Johansson. The shots of Tokyo are so beautiful. And it’s that same feeling I was talking about earlier…loneliness amongst a city full of people. I think I experience that in my own life and that’s one of the reasons I love it so much in art. That feeling is so tangible in Lost in Translation. I also love the way Sofia explored the relationship between the two characters. I love that their relationship is sort of romantic in the more classic sense of a thing being “romantic” but it’s not sexual. There’s an attraction, but it’s more of a kindred spirit attraction. Not many films explore that dynamic between men and women. And I like how we don’t know what he says to her at the end. I appreciate a little mystery in a world full of oversharing.

6. One of Tashaki Miyaki’s earlier videos (“Girls On T.V.”) was directed by James Franco, which on the surface seems a bit unusual, yet works out perfectly as there’s a definite cinematic and almost gritty story being told. How did the relationship with him come about and what was the collaboration process like for the video?

James grew up with my guitar player Luke (Paquin) in Palo Alto. They had collaborated in the past on an art project James did with some unused Gus Van Sant footage from My Own Private Idaho that appeared at the Gagosian in L.A. Luke scored some of the footage, Michael Stipe did some of it. It was over six hours of film. The band had been wanting to collaborate with James for a while and I thought he would really get the mood of “Girls on T.V.” We met up with him in L.A. and I talked with him about what the song meant to me. He understood and was into doing the video.

We wanted him to use an actress with range that just had that movie star presence on screen. When he said Juno Temple was available, I was super excited as I love her work. We (the band) tend to give the directors we work with a lot of freedom. Since we are all creative people who work in more than one discipline, we feel that is what people need to do their best work. So once we hire a director and agree on a general idea about the vibe of the video, we aren’t involved much beyond that. Me directing the videos is the most involved the band has ever been.

7. The majority of your music videos feature women. Is your music and visual presentation oriented more towards expressing the female perspective and/or experience?

Absolutely. I am a woman and it’s my perspective. It’s what I know. I am very drawn to softness and femininity. I am starting with my own experience and perspective and if I ever master that, perhaps I’ll move on to something else. I think writing what you know is a solid thing to do. But I love people with vast imaginations who create entire worlds. I do try as a writer to touch upon human experiences, but they are still through my filter, so that element is always there.

8. You’ve produced albums for other prominent, female-oriented, Los Angeles bands (Cherry Glazerr, L.A. Witch) – are you thinking of working on music videos for any other artists/bands, or even branching out into shooting or directing film/movies in the future?

The DP I worked with on “Castaway” and “Gone” – Arlene Muller – and I have become close friends and we have a lot of common interests creatively and visually. We have only done a couple things together and she already understands my vision without me having to explain much. It feels like we have known each other and worked together for years. We are going to make another video for this album together and after that we will make a short. The actress from the “Castaway” video and myself are going to be in it. We are in the very early stages of development right now. Once I am done with this album cycle, I will be able to focus more on that. And I would indeed like to make music videos for other artists. I had a video for the beautiful singer Emma Swift in pre-production but it was cancelled due to the pandemic lock down. We still plan to reschedule that, so I’m sure there will be more collaborations with other artists in the future.

9. Since you also act, did that kind of professional experience help inform your work in the creative process during the video shoots and working with the crew, actors, etc?

My acting experience helped in the sense of understanding of how a set is run. I guess it also helps that because I am a trained actor, I have a great respect for actors and I’m very comfortable with them. But I have also worked on sets in various jobs. Like many artists and freelancers, I have had to learn and use varied creative skills to pay my rent over the years.

Prior to the pandemic, I was producing major label music videos with bigger budgets. I was communicating with a large crew and many people and having to keep to a strict bottom line. That skill set helped a lot in working on my own things where I was working with a smaller budget and limited film. It also made a smaller set and crew seem like a breeze. I have met great people that I continue to work with both as an actor and as a producer, and now I get to bring them onto my sets as a director. I like having a creative extended family and working with the same people on different projects over time. I’ve been building that for a while now. Everything I have learned creatively feeds into other things. It doesn’t really matter to me if it’s acting or directing or music or painting. Everything is expression. For me, what I am interested in is beauty and truth. So I look for that everywhere…in my crew, in my actors, in all my collaborators. And really what I have learned from being a professional actor for two decades is to stay away from people and things that aren’t in alignment with what I’m interested in creatively because it serves no purpose.

When people understand what you’re about as a human and a creative person, and what your vision is, it’s much more enjoyable. A while back I studied with the acting teacher Diana Castle for a few years and I learned a lot from her. She would say many wise things. One thing I think about a lot was a quote by Sean Penn from a New York Times interview. He was talking about the turning point when his artistic expression became more important than impressing people. He said that’s when he became the Sean Penn we now know. That is what I really learned from being an actor. That’s where it’s at. Expressing.

10. OK, last and most difficult question: popcorn or candy?

I like sweet and salty so I say both. But I don’t mix them. Popcorn and peanut M&Ms on the side.